


beneath the noise I know you

by Ler



Category: Strange Magic (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Sense8 (TV) Fusion, F/M, Other, SCIFI AU, Strange Magic Week 2016, The au the redefines you gang's relationships, au where roland is usefull and still a piece of shit, this is an au called major clusterfuck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-28
Updated: 2016-08-28
Packaged: 2018-08-11 13:36:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7894648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ler/pseuds/Ler
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Their cluster exploded slowly, branch after branch after branch, until it went the full circle.<br/>Marianne saw death every day, and if she was in a different state if mind, if Dawn was in a different state of mind, she would have seen it as such - the death of who is she.<br/>Instead, she saw a birth, in which she herself was born, but not as one, as a collective.<br/>And she loved every since one of them. She loved every single new part of her. (Even fucking Roland!)</p>
<p>But him, she felt him most.</p>
            </blockquote>





	beneath the noise I know you

**Author's Note:**

> As I live and breath, I made this au happen and I'm so fucking proud. It's like I'm clearing my au backlog and nothing hurts.

 

 

  
The first one Marianne meets is Dawn.

One moment she is driving to the hospital for her shift through the wet bleak streets of Seattle in her Dodge, and the next - she is in a park overlooking a beach, waves rolling back and forth on the shore with the rhythm of her breathing - their breathing - and she tells herself - she tells Dawn, who feels great, who feels like a sister Marianne never had, who doesn't have the soreness in her back from yesterday's surgery gone too long:

"It's too yearly for this. I'm not awake enough."

Dawn shifts her weight from the palms of her hands to the balls of her feet, and then to her knees, and sits back, slim fingers tiptoeing forward, stretching _stretching_ **stretching** , and then her back does a small pop and from that moment on Marianne _adores_ her.

''Better?" She asks, blond curls falling forward with her face tucked into her knees.

"I never knew six in the morning could feel that good." Marianne breathes the salty air and hopes this dream never ends: Dawn and her yoga at -snicker- dawn, to the sound of seaguls in the gal wind and a smell of her Starbucks in a recyclable cup.

Boys swagging by in polo shirts and designer glasses and white male priveledge throw unabridged glances at her downwards-facing dog and imagine her naked and Marianne wants to rip and sow and rip again.

Dawn just smiles, in a sunlight way that makes you unclench your teeth and your fists.

"It's okay," her eyes pierce the sun and as she goes into a plank and, Marianne can swear, becomes a string, an arrow into the horison.

 

 

_No one is that perfect,_ Marianne wants to interject.

_We are_ , Dawn replies. _And so much more_.

 

 

 

 

The first person Dawn meets is Bog.

But before that, Dawn meets Aura.

 

  
She is driving home from the meeting with her publicist - a very long meeting with her publicist, about the dangers of going out in public "alone" and "without supervision" and "posting things on twitter that are not approved", and she just needs to breath, to stop feeling smothered, to press her own foot into the gas petal and feel the speed that she, Dawn, controls - when she takes a turn and sees a middle eastern woman stare her from the middle of the road, white tattered dress and blue electric hair and _blood, so much blood_ , she first thinks the woman was hit by a car, so she stops hers, and steps out to call to her, but the woman - _blood, so much blood_ \- just stares at her and says

 

_My children_

 

from across a dozen of feet but it feels as if it is said right in her ear.

Dawn takes a step, dust filling up her floppy sandals.

 

 

And then dust is sand.  
And then traffic is gunshots.  
And then she is horisontal not vertical, folded onto the ground by a tackle of a man twice as tall as her and ten times as strong.

 

"Are you insane?!" The man shouts as she sits in his one-armed embrace, head ducked under his chin as both of them crouch behind a wall, peppered with holes. "What the hell are you doing here? This is a bloody war zone!"

Dawn looks up at him, bending her hair back, and discovers a sharp chin, and a length of nose, pointy enough to stab someone, that begins at a pair of blue eyes, that stare from under the shade of a military cask. His english is perfect, with rolling r's and o-ing a's, and this is the only indication of his national identity that she gets.

"Since when is LA a war zone?" She asks him.

He regards her, with his military uniform and bullet-proof jacket and an authomatic rifle swung over his shoulder, like she lost her mind. "We are in the Middle East," he says.

 

_Ah_ , she nods. _That would explain all the writing on the wall._

 

_If you read Arabic_ , he growls, when they pop from behind the wall and send a row of shots in the direction of another explosion. _I don't._

 

_Me neither_ , and then they run across the street, and they are tall, and proudly stoic and Dawn marvels at the idea of being him, of experiencing the world, experiencing this with someone like him. _I just speak it._

 

His question is not even formed into words - she just feels it in a way their face contorts into a grimace - a _grimace_ , Dawn never grimaced, you never knew when a paparazzi could be about.

 

_It was for a role_.

 

 

Her pride prisms through him being impressed and what comes back is

 

**magnificent**.

 

 

 

  
A middle eastern woman with blue hair _and so such blood_ combs her fingers through their dirty and dusty hair. Her smile is tired and sly.

 

_My children_

 

 

  
The second person Bog meets is Roland Knight and Bog simultaneously hates him and likes him in a way you love to hate that disgusting part of yourself that you can't quite get rid of. He comes with the sense of danger and light-headedness, and a sort of a vertigo one experiences at a beginning of a good old-fashined high.

Bog washes his face in a make-shift sink of a mobile base, trying to get sand out of his eyes and ears and hair, and knows that it's bloody futile, and then, as water streams down his face in fat drops, and chemicals rush through his veins, he opens his eyes, at looks at himself in the mirror of a designer bathroom of some high-end club, and sniffs as Roland, disgustingly men's magazine perfect, wipes his nose.

"Stop doing this shit."

Roland rubs the leftovers into his upper gum and examines Bog with relaxed disappointment. The low tremble of the club's music whispers at his feet. His tongue tastes like supernovas.

"Wow, you are _ugly_ ," he says, mouth cringing and working on its own. "I'd prefer the cute blonde. Or better," he licks his upper lip. "The hot brunette. Really nice legs. Met her?"

"No."

"You'll like her, if you have any taste. And since you are me, _unfortunately_ ," his vision starts to swim, as if energy starts to boil under his skin, as if he is oil, liquid and on fire simultaneously. "You must."

 

One of the stalls behind his back opens. A man comes out, build like a brickhouse, with a face like he worked at one as well, his eyes pointed at the back of Roland's head.

 

"Hey, man, no homo-" he starts, before the man pulls a gun from under the lapel of his jacket, and Bog grabs his wrist with Roland's hands, twists the gun out, and with those same manicured hands he bashes the man's head against the natural stone of the sink's counter, once, twice, three times, before the later sinks to the floor.

 

_Holy shit, man, what the actual fu-_

_I'm going to repeat myself once_ , Bog growls, leaning his forehead against the mirror, because the adrenalin kicked in and it made everything so much **sharper**. A part of him worries if Dawn and the other one he haven't met yet are alright. _Stop doing this shit, or you are going to get all of us killed._

_Scarface, we need to get to know each other better,_ Roland nods, and picks up the gun, stuffing it behind the belt of his Brioni pants.

 

If Bog knew where his hand ended and Roland's began, he would have slapped the man across his whole face.

 

 

 

  
Roland meets Sunny the last, and only because he is deep shit - Sunny becomes an almost natural solution.

 

"So," he says to himself, staring at a safe holding the key to not getting killed. _Who's good at cracking this sort of thing?_

 

His mind remains awefully blank.

 

_Anyone? Scarface?_

 

_Stop calling me that._ A face pops over his shoulder, and for a moment he is overpowered by a wave if exaustion. The man is all scars and bullet wounds and a tan some would kill for, even if it's on a wiry veiny stick on a body. _If that was a bomb - then maybe. Not this._

 

"Well, shit," Roland pulls on the curl that falls over his face. It's a habit, a nervous one, the only give away to his poker face, but a soul has no face so how can he keep one if there are three other people in there with him, and they all think he is full of shit. "Uhh, okay, _okay_ , I just have to visualize. Not panic. _Visualize_."

"Do you have a drill," says the small man with a heap of dark hair tied in a bun on top of his head, and he looks like her crawled out of a garbage dump. Roland used to bully guys like him in high school, guetto kids, difficult kids.

Weak. Chow.

 

"Do I look like I have a drill?''

 

This suit he is wearing probably costs more like this... something's entire life. The something is fully aware of Roland's attitude and throws a weave of annoyance right back at him.

"You asked for help and I'm helping-"

 

_Roland, stop being a dick and cooperate. I'm in a middle of a bypass and I don't need any of your psychosis right now._

 

" **Fine** , buttercup. Just for you."

 

He looks around the room, _they_ look around the room, he has to remind himself, because this one is different, nothing like Marianne, who is like a cord of an electric guitar in his head, or Scarface, a stab wound, or Dawn, who tastes of mint and pineapple. It's like this one is not even there at all.

 

_There, a glass._

 

And then the sound disappears at all, and he can hear more than he ever could, on a new, completely undiscovered level - and in that silence, all sound exists in another quality.

 

_Absolute hearing_ , a new part of his mind tells him. _Perfect pitch._

 

The door of the safe creaks open. Roland digs into the perfectly stacked papers, bound and laminated and the still-lingering curious part of him, in freckles and winded skin, flips through them like the pages of a cheap magazine.

 

_That's it? I though there'd be money._

 

And Roland smirks. Because he might not be the sharpest tool in the shed, and he might not have skills, but oh, he is smart in the ways that count.

 

_This_ is _money. Hundreds of millions of money. You just have to know how to count them._

 

 

 

  
The second person Sunny meets is Marianne, and this is how they learn that this is how this is going to work, that they have to take care of each other, because no one else can, not like this.

Sunny also finds out that gunshots hurt like hell.

 

He is tucked behind a corner, in the shade of favelas rising around him, and he knows this place better than anyone, this is his place - and that is probably the only reason he is still alive, even if bleeding. Because no one is as fast as Sunny, especially if he wants to live.

That leaves him with a problem of a bullet in his shoulder, thankfully not of his good hand, and he claws his way to a nearest place he can call home, with a resemblance of a bed, a plate of food and alcohol strong enough to dull the feeling of his shoulder imploding.

 

_What happened?_ She asks when he peels off a dark red patch of his t-shirt.

 

_What does it look like?_ He replies and screams through his teeth shut. _Apparently there are people out there who really don't like that we exist. Surprise._

 

_They shot you_ , she states, cringing like she is in pain herself - _oh sweet Jesus_ , **she is** , their teeth clinching in simultaneous way at another spasm of assaulted flesh. And just like that, his pain multiplies, layering, spreading through people and distance, and in the back of their minds, a deep male voice, a lone tiger in the deepest of jungle, roars.

 

_Get that bullet fucking OUT of him!_

 

''Okay,'' says Marianne, suddenly more tangible than anything else, who grabs him by the back of his neck, and pulls him out of a shack and into an actual appartment, with nice furniture, and windows and rain, pouring out of grey cloudy sky. The air feels wet, but not the hot stuffy of his home. It sips through him, soaking and slipping, and he shivers.

"Where is this?"

''My home,'' she replies, and runs to the kitchen, opening drawers, swearing to herself. Then she fishes a square bottle of something ambery, and twists open the cap, pulling it to her mouth with heavy thirsty gulps.

"Uhh, should we be doing this?" He asks, and the next moment, they are back to bits of light pulling through the cracks in the walls. Alcohol pours in his veins, making him slightly numb and it's almost pleasant, as long as he doesn't make any sudden moves.

 

_That was for me. Can't think with all this pain. Give me a knife and a fire source._

 

He digs in his pockets for a pocketknife and a lighter. _Will this work?_

 

_Yeah. Will hurt like a bitch though._

 

It hurts more. It hurts a lot more. Marianne stucks a strip of cloth between their teeth, and stabs a red hot blade into the hole in their shoulder, and some part of him starts crying, and then it lessens, considerably, and a part of him that is Marianne says _those are some hardcore pain meds_ , while the roaring voice growls that they can thank him later. Then he chews leaves, and they stuff them into his new nook, and bandage them with the remainder of his shirt.

Sunny sleeps off a gunshot on semi-clean mattress, and something soft and calm and stream-like murmurs the pain away, and he floats, weightless, to where a pair of hands pet his head, and Marianne passes around, simultaneously there and not, like rustling of a wind among the branches, and with her, the forest becomes a labirinth in which tigers prawl and no one knows the way out.

 

 

 

  
Bog and Marianne are each other's last, and Bog just wants to sleep in a normal bed.

 

He wakes up in hers.

 

It's a queen-size endevour, with simple white sheets and a disproportional amount of pillows for such a compact person, one person, who sleeps on his shoulder, or just lies there, their eyes staring at the ceiling.

"Hi," he murmurs in some sort of a melody, a low rumble rolling through both of them that produces a reaction so violent he feels it in **places**. "Alright, did not expect that."

"Haven't been in a same bed with a man since medschool, give me a break,'' she rubs her face against his neck. Neither of them has an idea of how that works, how they manifest through someone else's agency, but right now it works for the two of them like they are in one bed, in one place, together, and his warmth is her warmth, and they are just _good_.

 

"I needed this, thanks,'' he dugs his face into her hair, and she smells of medical anticeptic and unisex parfume. "I think I'll be chocking out sand for years after this."

"Dawn said you are a soldier."

"It's classified. The least you know the better."

 

She pulls herself up, messy hair and soft skin and golden glorious eyes full of amusement. Her bare freckled shoulder lights up in the morning light, and looks like velvet, and feels like silk when he squuezes it, and she is humany and womany soft.

"You _do_ remember that our friend the Douche is in here somewhere,'' she taps against the side of her head, dark lips parting with a toothy grin, and then, as an afterthough, the side of his as well.

 

It's weird, like they synchronize, feelings and emotions downloading to become something else, to form something complete, and his stuff completes hers in a way that Marianne can't compare to the love she feels for Dawn, or for Sunny, or even for Roland, in a paradoxical way, like bying indugence to get to haven.

 

Bog soaks up the light where she shines, and that fills him with a glow of his own, a reserved kind of thing, and it stays, and it grows, and his fingers remain caressing up and down her arm, and he is not making it easier, with an easy relaxed smirk and sleepy hooded blue eyes and hue of arosal that is his and hers and _theirs_ , and its deeper than anything he ever had with a woman or she had with a man, multiplied and multiplied to the nth degree -

 

like within them they created a microcosm of infinite proportions yet limited to her bed and his tent, and she finds being in a tent more risque and edgy, while he prefers a bed because he can fit in it with all of his ridiculous lenght, and its not even physical (can't be, they are across miles and water and time zones - she can't even begin to fantom what it would be like in person, skin on skin on skin, sex on sex on sex, and she thinks she might actually die, or maybe even have a greatest orgasm of a lifetime, but he can't be arsed to think about this sort of thing now, _it's raining with you_ , and it smells like his home and he is _happy_ ), but the reactions are, so he throws his head back, banging it against the headboard, and hers lands on his chest that smells of sweat and man and scortched earth

 

and their mind is a melody, a heavy guitar solo of a most perfectly orchestrated fuck either of them could come up with, with that beat that hits just right, and their crescendo is loud enough to break through the barrier of _them_ into the cosmos of **Them** , and get a feedback

 

- _guys, guys, really?_

 

Marianne doesn't care what Sunny thinks. Marianne is good.

 

_Is this an invitation only party? If so, I don't see mine._

 

Bog pushes Roland out of his mind so hard he almost goes out there to him, but Marianne grips, her hand on the back of his head, and his comb through hers, and they kiss like the world could end, tommorrow, today, right now, and their worlds shift and merge in a kaleidoscope Marianne had as a kid, little bits of colored glass and beads in a mirrored tube, or the wind-chimes on the kitchen window of his mother's house, that reflected multicolored bunnies onto the kitchen floor in its slow turn.

 

  
_Mmmh._

 

_Yes._

 

_What would one call this?_

 

_Masturbation?_

 

_I vote for "mindfuck". The good kind._

 

He croaks a laugh, soft relaxed hand coming up to rub his face. They are full on endorfins and perfectly perfect in their unison, and Marianne, and Bog, and they think they can call this _love_.

 

**Yeah**.

 

  
"Sarge?" Says the voice from behind the flaps of his tent.

 

_What is it, left_ tenant?"

The air is stuffy and hot, that makes Marianne think of Californian beach, or Brazilian jungle, or a sea of sand dunes as far as the eye can see.

"Just received a missive, we have the new coords-"

"Got it. Just give me a minute."

 

_Sorry, have to go stabilize the political climate._ He turns his head one last time to feel a proper feather pillow under his cheek.

 

She doesn't want to let him go. She has a day off.

 

Marianne falls back on her mattress. He lingers in a brisk caress of her fingertips against his. _Love_ swells inside of her, trying to burst through her rib cage.

 

_I'll be right here. Probably in this bed. Probably with a box of pizza. Swing by whenever._

  
And then she is alone, in her bed, without a pizza, without him, and feels empty and missing a part and fighting an urge to ran to her laptop to buy a ticket to whatever desert country he is at, she will walk there if she has to, ride on a flipping camel, wrestle hungry lions-

 

  
_I fear for the lions,_ he pulls her into an embrace so sudden his intrusion sends a new wave a hot and electric from a bottom of her abdomen. _Seriously, I need to work. Get something with pineapple._

 

_No, urgh, you heathen. Ask Dawn. She's a fan of things that should not be eaten together._

 

_But_ you _are not Dawn,_ he replies.

 

_I am Dawn. You are Dawn. We all are Dawn. Think about that mindfuck while you, I don't know, fight terrorists_.

 

He materialises above her, long arms and wide shoulders and a scruff on his face that threatens to turn into an actual beard, and Marianne swears, she never saw anyone more beautiful. And then, in a weird desynced way, she feels that he knows and that she knows that he knows and what he knows and that he thinks the same way about her, and that is a small detail that leaves her speachless.

 

They make each other feel defined and endless, powerful and powerless, large as a universe of their own creation and a speck in an infinity of higher design.

 

_You know what I mean_ , and what he means is that he might love Dawn in a way that he loves his mother or a sister that he never had, and he might love Sunny because Sunny possesses the mindblowing tenacity and does things that make him speachless out of such purity of heart Bog didn't know people like that existed, and he might even love Roland-

 

But Marianne is a battle cry in his veins, Marianne weilds a scalpel like a sword, Marianne saves lifes, every day, and cries with exaustion and relief, Marianne sutures her own wounds and heals her own scars and keeps her walls high, but drops her draw bridges the moment she is called for-

 

_Yeah. I do._ She touches the tip of his nose. _Now go, I need to order the crime against humanity you call food._

 

 

 

 

The woman with blue hair and best eyebrows stands in the middle of Marianne's operating room dressed in white _and blood_.

 

  
_My children_

 

  
She says

 

 

_Welcome_

_  
Beware_

_  
Live_

 

 


End file.
